The GWJ Community Code of Conduct

Section: 

GWJ Code of Conduct

This Code of Conduct was last updated on July 13th, 2018 by Amoebic.

Our Pledge

In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, we as posters and moderators pledge to making participation in our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, level of experience, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.

Our Standards

Examples of behavior that contributes to creating a positive environment include:

  • Using welcoming and inclusive language
  • Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences
  • Gracefully accepting constructive criticism
  • Focusing on what is best for the community
  • Showing empathy towards other community members

Examples of unacceptable behavior by participants include:

  • The use of sexualized language or imagery, unwelcome sexual attention or advances
  • Trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, violent rhetoric, personal attacks, racism, sexism, fascism, ablism, homophobia, transphobia, or any other hate-based ideology.
  • Public or private harassment
  • Publishing others' private information, such as a physical or electronic address, without explicit permission
  • Posting paid articles to our site
  • Posting links or requests for pirate or warez sites

Our Responsibilities

Moderators are responsible for clarifying the standards of acceptable behavior and are expected to take appropriate and fair corrective action in response to any instances of unacceptable behavior.

Moderators have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject posts, comments, profile information, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, or to ban temporarily or permanently any contributor for other behaviors that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful.

Scope

This Code of Conduct applies to both public and private communications on the GWJ forums. Public and private behavior outside the bounds of these forums is more difficult to adjudicate, but harassment or publication of members’ private information by other members outside the bounds of the forum will not be tolerated.

Enforcement

Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported by contacting the moderation team using the Report Post button (flag icon), or by sending a message via PM to Amoebic until our web contact forms are operational again.

All complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. The moderation team is obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident. Find further details of specific enforcement policies below.

Moderators who do not follow or enforce the Code of Conduct in good faith may face temporary or permanent repercussions as determined by other forum moderators and administrators.

Attribution

This Code of Conduct is adapted from the Contributor Covenant, version 1.4, available at http://contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4.


Additional Guidelines

Do be descriptive with your thread titles

It’s best when people can tell at a glance what your thread is about. You may also wish to be more specific about what you want to discuss in your opening post.

This can make the difference between a thread titled “Best Thing Ever!” which will quickly trail off into uselessness and a thread titled “My New Frobnitz: Best Thing Ever!” which will drawn in people interested in talking about their frobnitzim.

Avoid posting advertisements

This is another place where some leeway is given to members who have been around a while and wish to mention their own personal projects, online stores, etc.

It is especially discouraged when people join the forums and immediately post advertisements—these are highly likely to be treated as spam and dealt with on that basis.

Avoid “mini-moderation”

If someone is breaching the Code of Conduct or you feel their behavior is inappropriate please report it to the moderation team for review. It’s what we’re here for!


Enforcement

Reporting methods

Moderators regularly read the forums and may find and handle problems themselves. However, these forums are very large and we can’t be everywhere at once. If you see a problem that the moderators don’t seem to have noticed, please report it.

If you are involved in a private communication with someone who is being abusive, threatening, or otherwise violating the Code of Conduct, please report that as well.

You may report a problem using the Report Post button (flag icon), or by sending a message via PM to Amoebic until our web contact forms are operational again.

If a problem involves a moderator or administrator, you may directly contact one of the other moderators or administrators listed below. As with any report, the remaining moderators will maintain confidentiality in such a situation.

Moderator response

Reports of spam will be handled immediately and silently.

Once a report of any other violation is received, a member of the moderation staff will review it. This should happen within a day of the report. Often, posts are flagged which do not require moderator intervention, either because community members self-corrected or the post in question does not breach the code of conduct.

If the flagged incident requires action, the moderator or moderators will then review the incident, examining any public record of the problem described and asking additional questions to clarify the problem if necessary.

If the problem is complex, the moderators may discuss it among themselves before taking action. In the case of simple and clear violations of the Code of Conduct, moderators are empowered to act alone.

All moderation actions will be recorded in a location readable by all moderators and administrators. When possible, discussion of the issues involved will occur in this same location.

Immediate action

Spam is deleted immediately when found or reported.

If a problem is ongoing or particularly injurious (for example active harassment or posting of private information without consent), moderators will move to solve the ongoing problem as quickly as possible and follow up with discussion and looking into the details. This may involve deletion of posts and other content, as well as temporary bans (pending confirmation after all the details are known.)

Resolutions

The following minor responses are among those available to the moderators without discussing the issue with the entire moderation staff:

  • Reprimanding an offender in private
  • Deleting or editing posts (leaving a note where the edit occurred) to remove material that violates the Code of Conduct

If a minor response is made to a violation that was reported by a forum member, that member will be informed by private message about the resolution.

The following major responses require the moderation staff to reach a consensus about the action to be taken (although temporary bans may be instated in order to prevent immediate harm from continuing):

  • Reprimanding an offender in public in the same location in which the violation occurred
  • Requesting that an offender “take a vacation” and voluntarily absent themselves from the forum or a subforum for a while
  • Temporarily banning an offender in order to enforce a vacation
  • Permanently banning an offender such that they may not return to the site

If a major response is made to a violation that was reported by or directly affected other forum members, the moderators will contact the affected parties to explain the proposed resolution. If the reporter or other parties are unsatisfied with the resolution, their comments will be recorded but the moderators are not required to act on this feedback.

Conflicts of interest

In the event of any conflict of interest a moderator must immediately notify the other moderators and recuse themselves from decisions if necessary.

Disabling Accounts

GWJ will disable and/or rename a user's account at their request. Due to creating gaps in threads and causing confusion, GWJ will not delete old account posts unless there are personal safety reasons for doing so.


Staff

Administrators:

Moderators:

Moderators are accountable to the administrators for their moderation actions, as recorded in a location visible to the administrators and moderation staff.

Comments

GWJ Code of Conduct:
Discussions & Debates Addendum

All of the normal standards in the Code of Conduct apply in this section of the forums, except for any exceptions or additional constraints described below.

Discussions & Debates

We all participate in a wide wide world, far wider than any of us as individuals may experience. This section of the forums exists so that we may talk about issues of politics and policy, current events, situations of personal and public concern. Whether we’re participating in order to teach others about the issues we face, or the issues we care about—or we’re participating in order to learn more about our fellow forum members or the wider world—it is valuable to us to come together and share our views, beliefs, and struggles... even when those can make others uncomfortable.

Many of us currently on the forums have over the years learned a great deal of value about the human experience of our fellow gamers, and the human experience of people of all backgrounds all over this world.

While these discussions here sometimes grow heated and some of the things discussed can make people acutely uncomfortable, we believe that the benefits from coming together and talking with each other outweigh the cost of keeping the peace.

It is our hope that in the years ahead we and others continue to grow in wisdom and empathy and be better participants in our society and our world.

Thread statements of scope

Each posted thread must have a statement of scope, however brief. We do this for two reasons: First, because it allows participants to have a better idea of what is in-bounds or out-of-bounds for discussion within a thread, and whether they wish to participate. Second, because it allows moderators to have a better idea of what is in-bounds or out-of-bounds, in order to deal with problems when the discussion slips out of scope.

Thread authors may also specify in their scope statements additional expectations of posters within the thread—specific topics that are off-limits, for example—as long as those expectations are not overbearing. For example:

Subject: The Question of Outdoor Cats

Scope: This is for discussion of outdoor cats, both the benefits of the choice to let your cats outside and the potential social and health issues. Discussion of why people shouldn’t own cats in the first place or better pet ideas are not the intention here.

Thread participants absolutely should read the scope statements of threads before posting, to make sure they understand the scope of the discussion.

Thread categories

In order to keep expectations clear, we have defined a handful of different “categories” for threads. Every thread author must choose one of these categories for their thread when creating it, and slightly different rules apply to different sorts of threads.

Note that the usual Code of Conduct standards apply in all of these thread types. You are always expected to treat your fellow forum members with respect, even when the conversation grows heated.

Of course, not every topic will have every thread type. A certain amount of drift from one category to another is acceptable (a quick tangent to define a particularly troublesome word, quick answers to simple questions). But when these interruptions become intrusive, they should be given a separate space.

Discussion

The vast majority of threads cover a lot a themes and a lot of ground. They can sometimes include a lot of history and theory, not all of which is familiar to everyone interested in the topic. Discussion group threads are places to talk with people interested in the depths and details of a topic. You will be expected to share and take in opinions with the assumption that ideas are worthy of discussion, whether or not you agree with them.

News

Current events frequently spur a lot of quick discussion. News threads are places for sharing and discussing news stories, blog posts, and the like, often focused on a specific topic. Other threads should be spawned when the conversation gets especially directed towards a particular incident or topic. Not every news story requires substantive discussion, but those that do should be handled in their own threads.

Q&A/Learning

When a topic or issue and the ideas behind it are understood by many, there is still a need for basic questions to be answered. Q&A/learning threads are places to ask and answer essential basic questions. If you are asking questions you should show respect and good faith towards those spending their time to answer your questions. If you are answering questions you should make allowances for mistakes due to a lack of understanding and assume good faith on the part of those asking.

Debate

Debate threads are rarely-needed places to strenuously and formally argue your position, to convince others to consider or accept your point of view. If you are arguing in a debate thread, you are expected to argue your position with integrity and use sources to back up your claims. You are also expected to treat other posters with respect, even while arguing against their positions.